Rethink Your Self: A 5-Day PlanSample

Self-Definition

We’ve looked at the way that sin affects our design, display, and desires. It also affects the way we define ourselves. 

When it comes to definition, the selfish impulse shows up, causing us to pursue our own purpose and identity at the expense of others around us. We look in rather than up in order to define our lives, to define what “our truth” is.

The “look in” approach to life makes “be true to yourself” the greatest commandment. The second commandment follows closely: “affirm whatever self your neighbor chooses to be.” The greatest sins, in this way of thinking, are to fail to be true to yourself by conforming to someone else’s vision for your life, or to refuse to support someone else’s personal life choices.

But when seen in light of the Bible, this “look in” approach to life appears to celebrate the self-centered, inward turn. It strengthens the selfish impulse. In contrast to this approach, the Bible says the greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then your neighbor as yourself.

Look up, and God is God; we were made to love and enjoy him. Look in, and you are God; the world exists to love and enjoy you.

The Solution to Sin

So how do we respond to sin? In the “look in” view, if you’re not satisfied with life, it’s likely that you’ve not yet found your authentic self and asserted your independence. You are still conforming to something outside yourself. The Bible’s take, however, is that sin keeps you from being satisfied. The problem is that you haven’t conformed enough to God’s purpose and design for your life. 

The “look up” solution to sin is repentance. It’s the moment you doubt yourself instead of trust yourself, when you have your eyes opened to the wrong steps you’ve taken and the bad desires you’ve chased, when you recognize the ways in which your words and actions have hurt people around you. It’s when your heart sinks at the thought, I’m the problem, but then rises at the realization, I am not bound to this path I’ve been on. What if I turn around? It’s when you realize the solution to your biggest problems is not to look in, but to look up, because the source of your biggest problems is not in your own self-defined failures, but in the self-made mess created by your independence from the God who made you in the first place.

What if you adopt the definition God assigns you? No one can take that away, whereas a definition you have to determine for yourself, or a definition given you by others, could wind up always being in a state of flux. If you define yourself, you’re a slave to your own ideas and desires. If the community defines you, you’re a slave to the ideas and desires of others. 

But if God defines you, you’re a slave to him, but you experience that slavery as freedom, because in adopting his definition you are who you really were meant to be.

PRAY

Lord God, I want to live according to the way you define me. Help me to seek your definition and reject my definition and others’ definition. Empower me to live as you have intended for me to live. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.